However, even as Apple is looking to improve its native Maps application on a continuing basis, Google is looking to offers users a seasoned alternative -- Google Maps. The refreshed Google Maps app for iOS has all the goodies (and more) that users loved before Apple decided to give the application the boot for its own homegrown solution.

Street View, transit directions, walking directions, traffic data, and restaurant reviews (provided by Zagat) are all included. And in case you were wondering, yes, turn-by-turn navigation is front in center in the new Google Maps iOS app.

For users of Android smartphones, none of this stuff is really news to you -- you've been enjoying such functionality for years. However, for Apple customers that have complained about Apple's native Maps app, you now can install an alternative that appears to be better in nearly every way.

quote: Now Google has to win iOS users by producing a product that users will want to switch to out of choice

Google doesn't have to win iOS users. It already has them in its pocket thanks to gross incompetence - very nearly bordering on criminal negligence - exercised by Steve Forstall, Steve Jobs and a bunch of wrongheaded Apple employees who thought they could get rid of Google with one bullet to its head.

quote: Google's mapping monopoly

Seeing just how bad iOS 6 Maps is, I don't mind Google's mapping monopoly at all. At least Google's gets me from Point A to Point B. With Apple's? I can't find Point B at all.

quote: he (Eddie Cue) has a stash of $130 billion in cash to play with

He needs a lot more than a few billions in cash to fix the high hell that is iOS 6 Maps.

quote: Google doesn't have to win iOS users. It already has them in its pocket

How? When iOS 6 was released, given the typical rapid uptake of iOS updates, Google lost in a period of just a few weeks access to the location data generated by hundreds of millions of iOS users. That's a significant loss to Google. If it wasn't a loss why not just leave iOS in the lurch, not release a Google iOS mapping app, and punt Google mapping as an Android USP? Google doesn't just want that data, it needs it.

quote: Keep drinking the gay-infused Apple Fail-Aid(TM), kid.

Why are so many Apple haters homophobic? Why is homophobia still tolerated and almost mainstream on forums such as this? How would you feel if I used a characteristic of yours, like your race or religion as an insult? Grow up dude, it's the 21st century not the 19th.

quote: How? When iOS 6 was released, given the typical rapid uptake of iOS updates, Google lost in a period of just a few weeks access to the location data generated by hundreds of millions of iOS users. That's a significant loss to Google. If it wasn't a loss why not just leave iOS in the lurch, not release a Google iOS mapping app, and punt Google mapping as an Android USP? Google doesn't just want that data, it needs it.

The most important thing about a navigation app is accuracy - if you cannot go from Point A to Point B without inadvertently killing yourself in the process, it's useless, regardless of how flashy it may be. Guess what? iOS 6 Maps has next to zero accuracy in so many places. 3D Flyover previews do nothing when it gives you the wrong directions.

You can put a gun on my forehead and threaten to pull the trigger just because I don't use iOS 6 Maps at all - go ahead, pull the trigger, you're not going to win.

Google’s Android strategy is inconsistent and incomprehensible. Apple never would have created its own mapping program at all if Google hadn’t denied Apple audible turn-by-turn directions. Now – after Apple has integrated their own maps into their iOS operating system – Google gives Apple everything they ever wanted. How does that make any sense?

If Google wanted to deny Apple access to features that were on Android, then they shouldn’t have created Google Maps for iOS. If they wanted iOS eyeballs, then they should have given Apple turn-by-turn directions BEFORE Apple effectively un-integrated Google maps. The whole affair was completely counter-productive for all involved.

You can’t have it both ways. Either Google should be in the business of being on every mobile platform or Google should be in the business of Android. Trying to pursue both strategies is like trying to keep one foot on the dock and the other on the boat. You can’t get anywhere and it’s going to sink you sooner or later.

quote: You can’t have it both ways. Either Google should be in the business of being on every mobile platform or Google should be in the business of Android. Trying to pursue both strategies is like trying to keep one foot on the dock and the other on the boat. You can’t get anywhere and it’s going to sink you sooner or later.

Yeah, look up Microsoft in the 1980's. They wrote Apps for Mac, while promoting Windows which was enbraced by many 3rd party vendors. Sound familiar? iOS will probably go the same route as Mac, niche.

A classic study reveals that young homophobic men have secret gay urges

Both groups—non-homophobic and homophobic men—showed significant engorgement to the straight and lesbian porn and their subjective ratings of arousal matched their penile plethsymograph measure for these two types of video. However, as predicted, only the homophobic men showed a significant increase in penile circumference in response to the gay male porn. urthermore, the homophobic men significantly underestimated their degree of sexual arousal to the gay male porn.

In another study, the homophobic group delivered more intense shocks and for longer durations when they thought the person in the other room was gay. On the subjective ratings of mood, the major difference between the two groups was on the dimension of anger-hostility: non-homophobics showed a small positive blip in the radar on this dimension while the homophobics showed a dramatic increase in anger-hostility between the pre-video measure of mood and the post-video rating. These data suggest that homoerotic stimuli—such as seeing two men holding hands—could send an already angry homophobic man over the top.

quote: Homophobia is more pronounced in individuals with an unacknowledged attraction to the same sex and who grew up with authoritarian parents who forbade such desires, a series of psychology studies demonstrates.

"In many cases these are people who are at war with themselves and they are turning this internal conflict outward."

The paper includes four separate experiments, conducted in the United States and Germany, with each study involving an average of 160 college students. The findings provide new empirical evidence to support the psychoanalytic theory that the fear, anxiety, and aversion that some seemingly heterosexual people hold toward gays and lesbians can grow out of their own repressed same-sex desires, Ryan says. The results also support the more modern self-determination theory, developed by Ryan and Edward Deci at the University of Rochester, which links controlling parenting to poorer self-acceptance and difficulty valuing oneself unconditionally.

quote: Why are so many Apple haters homophobic? Why is homophobia still tolerated and almost mainstream on forums such as this?

If anything I have found Dailytech to be relatively relaxed in it's homophobia.

And I also dislike Apple's products for various reasons. (I.E. To costly, under-performs, under-featured.) - Yet I'm a happily gay man.

The moral of the story is...Don't pigeon hole someone based on sexuality, sex or skin colour, you only make yourselves out to look like a buffoon as chances are that someone will not fit that imaginary stereotype.